The streaming platform has been broadcasting the entire series Mad Men since August 12… with the exception of episode 3 of season 3. The episode appears to have been removed because of a scene where a character performs “blackface.”
“The complete Mad Men series is available,” Netflix wrote on August 12 on its X account, formerly Twitter. Throughout the month of August, the streaming platform multiplied messages indicating that the seven seasons of the famous series about the advertising world of the 1960s were available to its subscribers.
A missing episode
However, this is a misleading announcement. As users on the Reddit forum noticed in a thread spotted by the media Metroone episode out of the 92 episodes promised by the platform is missing. It is episode 3 of season 3, entitled “My old Kentucky home”.
In the episode, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) paints his face black and caricatures an anti-slavery song to amuse his guests. All the guests burst out laughing, except for Don Draper, the main character.
It is a “blackface”, a theatrical process of the 19th century where white actors painted their faces black to caricature black people. Since then, the practice of blackface has been considered racist and increasingly unanimously condemned to the point that certain series and films, such as Scrubs or The Office have chosen to remove scenes where actors darken their skin.
Warning message on Prime
The broadcast of such racist practice in the series had also questioned the production company Lionsgate, behind the series. Mad MenIn 2020, the company then explained to the Los Angeles Times that the episode would not be cut but that a prevention message would be added at the beginning of the episode on streaming platforms.
“This episode contains disturbing images related to race in America. (…) By relying on historical authenticity, the producers of the series are committed to exposing the injustices and inequalities within our society, which still persist today,” could be read in the message which contextualizes the sequence.
“It allows us to look at the most painful parts of our history to reflect on who we are today and who we want to become.”
The streaming platforms that had the rights to rebroadcast the series before Netflix, such as Amazon Prime or Roky, did not remove the episode. They simply broadcast the famous message before its launch, as Lionsgate wanted. Netflix preferred to remove the episode, thus going beyond the producers’ wishes.
The decision has angered some netizens. “Of course, just remove an entire episode, a crucial one at that. Racism existed, pretending it never existed is not only stupid, but also insensitive and dangerous. God, I hate Netflix,” wrote one user on Reddit.
“This is insane,” another added. “The writers were trying to show how racist and out of touch these people are.”
For its part, Netflix has not commented on the subject and has not responded to requests from the English site. Metro.
